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J of Common Market Studies - 2002 - Huysmans - The European Union and The Securitization of Migration 1
J of Common Market Studies - 2002 - Huysmans - The European Union and The Securitization of Migration 1
J of Common Market Studies - 2002 - Huysmans - The European Union and The Securitization of Migration 1
5
December 2000 pp. 751–77
JEF HUYSMANS
University of Kent
Abstract
This article deals with the question of how migration has developed into a
security issue in western Europe and how the European integration process
is implicated in it. Since the 1980s, the political construction of migration
increasingly referred to the destabilizing effects of migration on domestic
integration and to the dangers for public order it implied. The spillover of the
internal market into a European internal security question mirrors these
domestic developments at the European level. The Third Pillar on Justice and
Home Affairs, the Schengen Agreements, and the Dublin Convention most
visibly indicate that the European integration process is implicated in the
development of a restrictive migration policy and the social construction of
migration into a security question. However, the political process of connect-
ing migration to criminal and terrorist abuses of the internal market does not
take place in isolation. It is related to a wider politicization in which
immigrants and asylum-seekers are portrayed as a challenge to the protection
of national identity and welfare provisions. Moreover, supporting the polit-
ical construction of migration as a security issue impinges on and is
embedded in the politics of belonging in western Europe. It is an integral part
of the wider technocratic and political process in which professional agen-
cies – such as the police and customs – and political agents – such as social
* My thanks to the anonymous reviewers and John Peterson for helpful comments on earlier versions of
this article, and to Amy Crawshaw for correcting spelling and grammar.
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752 JEF HUYSMANS
movements and political parties – debate and decide the criteria for legiti-
mate membership of west European societies.
I. Introduction
The development of a common migration policy in the European Union (EU)
is embedded in wider societal, political and professional processes that
articulate an endangered society. Western European welfare states face a
multiplicity of challenges to their mechanisms of societal integration and
political legitimacy. These include economic and financial globalization, the
rise of poverty, the deterioration of living conditions in cities, the revival of
racist and xenophobic parties and movements, the estrangement of the elector-
ate from the political class, and the rise of multiculturalism. In this setting
migration has been increasingly presented as a danger to public order, cultural
identity, and domestic and labour market stability; it has been securitized.1
Although the social construction of migration as a security question is
contested (for example by social movements supporting a liberal multicultur-
alism (Ireland, 1991)), it results from a powerful political and societal dynamic
reifying migration as a force which endangers the good life in west European
societies.
In this article, I look at how the Europeanization of migration policy is tied
to these wider societal, professional and political dynamics. More specifically,
I deal with the question: how is migration connected to representations of
societal dangers and how is the development of a common migration policy
implicated in making this connection?2 The key development has been the
technocratic and politically manufactured spillover of the economic project of
the internal market into an internal security project. Immigration and asylum
1
I will use the concept migrant as a general category including immigrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees.
2
This journal recently published two articles that looked at the construction of migration as a security
problem in the European Union. Kostakopoulou (2000) showed how the contradiction between an
increasing liberalization of free movement for nationals of the Member States and the development of
restrictive and control-oriented approaches to the free movement of third-country nationals is further
strengthened in post-Amsterdam Europe. She argued that the latter development results from governments
imposing their (domestic) security agendas on the Europeanization of migration policy. Guiraudon (2000)
demonstrated in her article that the internationalization of the (domestic) security agenda develops through
venue shopping in which a multiplicity of agents attempt to overcome constraints they face in the domestic
arena through internationalizing their policies in different venues requiring different strategies and
including different mixes of agents. Both articles identify the restrictive and control-oriented approach as
a security approach – agents and policies frame migration as a security question. However, neither of these
two articles looks in any detail at the complex themes and issues that are implied by the security dynamic
surrounding migration. This article addresses this aspect in greater detail. It highlights the different
dimensions and themes of the securitization of migration and the implication of the European Union in this
process. The result is a more complex and also more messy picture of what precisely makes up the security
frame within which the agents and policy developments analysed in the other two articles are embedded,
and which they have helped to construct and to reproduce.
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THE EU AND THE SECURITIZATION OF MIGRATION 753
have been integrated into a policy framework that defines and regulates
security issues arising from the abolition of internal border control. However,
there is more to the involvement of the EU than this. The explicit privileging
of nationals of Member States in contrast to third-country nationals and the
generally restrictive regulation of migration sustains a wider process of de-
legitimating the presence of immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. EU
policies support, often indirectly, expressions of welfare chauvinism and the
idea of cultural homogeneity as a stabilizing factor. In the contemporary
domestic and European political context, these policies facilitate the creation
of migration as a destabilizing or dangerous challenge to west European
societies. It also raises questions about how the development of a common
migration policy feeds into the wider politics of belonging, that is the struggle
over cultural, racial and socio-economic criteria for the distribution of rights
and duties in a community. Directly or indirectly, supporting strategies of
securitization makes the inclusion of immigrants, asylum-seekers and refu-
gees in European societies more difficult. It also has implications for the
chances of promoting multicultural policies based on a notion of solidarity and
a distribution of rights and duties that is not determined by cultural identity.
In the Sections II and III, I will briefly highlight how the most significant
steps in the Europeanization of migration policy correlate with a growing
consensus about the need to restrict migration and with an increasingly explicit
politicization of migration as a danger. In Section IV, I look at the spillover of
the economic logic of the internal market into a security logic and at how the
Europeanization of migration policy is integrated in this process. The final two
sections deal with the question of how the cultural and socio-economic
dimensions of the governance of migration feed into the securitization of
immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees in the EU.
questions from the Third to the First Pillar became one of the key issues for the
Intergovernmental Conference reviewing the Treaty on European Union
(Commission, 1996). In the Treaty of Amsterdam the sections of the Third
Pillar relating to immigration, asylum and refugees were communitarized
(Duff, 1997; den Boer, 1997; Kostakopoulou, 2000).
capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty’ (SEA, Art.
13). In the wake of the SEA, EC policies quickly linked the downgrading of
internal frontier control to the necessity of strengthening external border
controls. The reasoning can be summarized as follows: if we diminish internal
border controls then we must harmonize and strengthen the control at the
external borders of the European Community to guarantee a sufficient level of
control of who and what can legitimately enter the space of free movement (De
Lobkowicz, 1994; Anderson, 1996, pp. 186–7). For example, Art. 7 of the
Schengen Agreement of 1985 states:
The parties shall endeavour to approximate as soon as possible their visa
policies in order to avoid any adverse consequences that may result from the
easing of controls at the common frontiers in the field of immigration and
security.
Those who feared that the development of the internal market would lead to a
clamp down on international free movement warned that a fortress Europe was
in the making (Ireland, 1991; Bigo, 1998). For example, an evaluation of the
member organizations of the European Consultation on Refugees and Exiles
concluded in 1989 that ‘we are heading in the wrong direction, motivated by
a fortress mentality, and distracted from developing an appropriate response to
the global dimensions of the problem’ (Rudge, 1989, p. 212).
The link between diminishing internal border controls and strengthening
external border controls rests on the double assumption that control of the
illegal movement of goods, services, and persons happens primarily at the
border, and that the free movement of persons is constituted by abolishing
border controls. Although these assumptions are shared by many, they are
contestable. For example, personal identity controls increased in the wake of
the abolition of internal border controls in some countries of the European
Community. Border checks were replaced by an increase in random identity
controls across the national territory (Bigo, 1996b; Ceyhan and Tsoukala,
1997). It is not very clear either that the majority of illegal immigrants are
smuggled into a country. Staying in a country after a visa has expired is a
common form of becoming an illegal immigrant (Salt, 1989). Further, it is
doubtful that border control is the main obstacle to the free movement of people
in modern societies. The granting of work permits, residency permits and
providing access to welfare provisions and social assistance are undoubtedly
more important instruments for controlling, improving or limiting the free
movement of people (Ceyhan, 1998; Crowley, 1998; King, 1997). Finally,
given the high number of people and goods passing borders, it has become
impossible to check systematically and consistently everyone and everything
crossing borders (Bigo, 1996b).
4
The concept ‘signifier’ is one of the two dimensions of a sign: signifier and signified. The signifier refers
to the expressive dimension of language (e.g. the word ‘Europe’ spoken, written, symbolized, etc.). The
signified refers to the content of language (e.g. the meaning of Europe, such as Europe meaning European
integration) (Greimas and Courtés, 1993).
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762 JEF HUYSMANS
of many problems (Faist, 1994, p. 52). Social and political agencies use the
theme of immigration, foreigners, asylum-seekers and refugees to interrelate
a range of disparate political issues in their struggle over power, resources and
knowledge (Bigo, 1998; Huysmans, 1997).
5
The list was requested under Art. 100c of the Treaty on European Union.
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764 JEF HUYSMANS
cultural origins of asylum-seekers and therefore the cultural effects are not
necessarily intended. For example, the cultural consequences of border closure
result partly from class interests and shifts in the labour market. Since western
markets seem to demand especially skilled labour, the restrictive policies
target primarily unskilled and semi-skilled migrants, who tend to belong to
non-OECD countries (Miles, 1993, pp. 179–80). One has to be cautious about
this latter argument, however. Some economic sectors in particular regions and
cities depend on unskilled labour and on the illegal, and therefore cheaper and
more flexible, employment of immigrants (Vidal, 1999; Morice, 1997). But
the fact remains that the regulation of asylum and the mediation of immigration
through the labour market has cultural effects in the sense that the skilled
foreign labour force tends to be culturally similar and that asylum-seekers tend
to be perceived as culturally different.
Some argue that, in addition to cultural criteria, racism also plays a role in
the regulation of inclusion and exclusion of migrants (Sivanandan, 1993).
While nationalism is a cultural discourse, racism is a biological discourse that
unifies a community in the name of somatic or biological criteria such as skin
colour, height, facial characteristics, etc. (Miles, 1989; Wieviorka, 1991). The
argument is that the EU develops an Euro-racism (Pieterse, 1991; Sivanandan,
1990, pp. 153–60; Webber, 1991). However, as Miles (1994) and Wieviorka
(1994) have argued, it is problematic to claim that the diversity of racist
practices in different Member States and the racial effects of the European
integration process produce a specific form of racism that is present in all
Member States. National policies against racism and xenophobia, and the
historical and political context in which racism and xenophobia have emerged,
differ considerably across the Member States. For example, a debate surrounds
the question of whether the European policy initiatives against racism and
xenophobia should follow the British model of race relations. This model is
contested because some argue that it institutionalizes racial differentiation. But
the disagreement also rests on the difference between the British model and the
way in which some of the continental countries have dealt with racism and
xenophobia (Miles, 1994; Wieviorka, 1994).
There is, however, a more indirect connection between migration policy in
the EU and racism and xenophobia. Emphasizing restrictions and control
implies a negative portrayal of groups of migrants. Such a policy risks
sustaining public expressions of racism and xenophobia in the present political
context. The targeted groups often have an explicit link to Europe’s colonial
history and/or have traditionally been subjected to racist stereotyping, such as
the gypsies. So irrespective of some recent initiatives to combat racism and
xenophobia such as the creation of a European Monitoring Centre on Racism
and Xenophobia (OJ, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997), the EU is indirectly implicated
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THE EU AND THE SECURITIZATION OF MIGRATION 765
that the security identity of the European integration process is based on a fear
of the return of the balance of power system which fragmented and ruled
nineteenth-century Europe and culminated in the First and Second World Wars
(Wæver, 1996). The debates about multiculturalism are based on a variation of
the fear of the return of the old Europe. They articulate a security identity that
rests on the fear of the revival of extreme nationalism, racism and xenophobic
reactions which destabilized the domestic and European political space in the
first half of the twentieth century. The peculiar characteristic of the contempo-
rary dynamic is that this haunting past is reactivated via a politicization of
migration.
The migration policy developed in the EU is ambivalent in the way it deals
with this fear. On the one hand, the Europeanization of migration policy
indirectly sustains nationalist, racist and xenophobic reactions to immigrants.
It portrays immigrants and asylum-seekers primarily in negative terms. They
are presented as an acute problem challenging societal and political stability
and the effective working of the internal market. In doing so, the EU feeds the
idea that migrants do not belong to the European communities, that they are a
serious burden for European societies, and, therefore, that they should be kept
at a distance. It is a policy that confirms nationalist and xenophobic positions
and to that extent undermines the initiatives for the institutionalization of a
more inclusive multicultural Europe which would provide extensive political,
economic and social rights to immigrants.
On the other hand, the EU also campaigns against the revival of national-
ism, racism and xenophobic reactions. Furthermore, European integration is in
essence a multicultural project supporting the cohabitation of different nation-
alities in social, economic and political space. The politicization of migration
has not only led to a restrictive migration policy undermining multiculturalism
in the EU. It has also contributed to making the question of multiculturalism
figure prominently in debates on European integration (Leveau, 1998). Be-
sides the policy initiatives for multiculturalism that are developed in the EU,6
there is a flourishing intellectual debate on the relationship between European
integration and the creation of a post-national citizenship. A key question in the
latter context is the extent to which the European integration process has
created an opportunity structure for separating citizenship – or political
identity – from nationality. The central issue is whether European integration
will create an opportunity for granting political rights on the basis of residence
independent of the nationality of the person (Close, 1995; Ferry, 1990, 1991,
6
For example, antiracist projects running during 1997 in the Framework of the Youth for Europe
Programme; Commission (1998); European Parliament (2000); and the Commission’s overview of
Europe’s commitment in the fight against racism and xenophobia (Commission, 1997).
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THE EU AND THE SECURITIZATION OF MIGRATION 767
of social policy. The positive spin-off of the internal market in the area of social
entitlements is, thus, largely reserved for nationals of the Member States.
Given that employment is an important path to access social rights beyond
the right of social assistance, favouring Community manpower also feeds into
welfare chauvinism. For example, the Justice and Home Affairs Council, after
its meeting in Luxembourg (20 June 1994), stated that it approves of temporary
employment of foreigners
only where vacancies in a Member State cannot be filled by national and
Community manpower or by non-Community manpower lawfully resident
on a permanent basis in that Member State and already forming part of the
Member State’s regular labour market. (Quoted in Ireland, 1995, p. 262)
Access to social rights and the possibility of transferring rights between
countries are key instruments of social integration of both the domestic society
and the EU (Donzelot, 1994). It is a key issue in the politics of belonging in
welfare states. Welfare chauvinism is a strategy of introducing cultural identity
criteria in an area in which belonging is determined on the basis of social policy
criteria, such as health, age, disability and employment. It is not surprising,
therefore, to find that support for curtailing social rights of immigrants often
also implies support for the idea that migration is a threat to cultural homoge-
neity.
Recent political conflicts around social rights of immigrants have often been
based on the claim that the willingness to share social goods distributed by
the welfare state needs a basis of common feeling. It is thus not surprising that
those political actors opposed to (further) immigration, and/or to granting
certain social rights to immigrants, have tended to refer to the alleged threat
immigrants pose not only as economic competitors in the labour market and
for social policies (‘they take away our jobs and our benefits’) but also as a
threat to the cultural homogeneity of the national state. (Faist, 1995, p. 189)
Welfare chauvinism emerges under a radical or a more moderate form. In its
radical form, the socio-economic stigmatization portrays migrants as profit-
eers who try illegitimately to gain benefits from the welfare system of a
community to which they do not belong. They are strangers who exploit the
society that is so kind as to house them. They have become free-loaders
illegitimately taking advantage of a welfare system under pressure who, thus,
constitute a strain upon the system itself. The migrant is transformed from a
competitor into someone committing welfare fraud (Faist, 1994, p. 61). A more
moderate version relates the necessity for controlling migration to economic
recession, which limits employment opportunities for migrants and propor-
tionally raises the costs of sustaining them. Here one seeks to curtail the social
rights of immigrants and asylum-seekers, not because they are free-loading,
but because a community should first and foremost provide benefits and
welfare for its ‘own’ people. In this view, shrinking resources create pressure
for a redistribution of employment opportunities and social rights favouring
the nationals of EU Member States.
The disqualification of migration in expressions of welfare chauvinism is
given a wider societal significance through the use of metaphors such as an
‘invasion’ or ‘flood’ of asylum-seekers (Faist, 1994, p. 61). In a welfare state
struggling to guarantee an acceptable level of socio-economic rights, these
metaphors portray immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees as a serious threat
to the survival of the socio-economic system. In the political spectacle these
metaphors help to dramatize the socio-economic problematic of the welfare
state by framing it in a security discourse: experiences of economic and social
uncertainty are translated into opposition to and fear of immigrants and
asylum-seekers.
The securitization of migration in the context of the debates about the future
of the welfare state is also embedded in a struggle for political legitimacy in and
of the post-war political order in Europe. Challenges to the welfare state, which
started to be the subject of turbulent debates in the 1970s (Held, 1987, pp. 221–
64), cannot be reduced to a question of economic recession or a breakdown of
the spiral between rapid economic growth and the creation of social rights. The
crisis is in essence a political crisis about the decline of the post-war technology
of integrating society and state by creating solidarity among the different
classes through redistribution, welfare provisions, and a generalized system of
insurance against accidents (Donzelot, 1994, pp. 185–263; Habermas, 1976).
Thus, welfare chauvinism is not only a strategy in the socio-economic fight for
the protection of social and economic rights for nationals of the Member States.
It is also played out in a directly political struggle in which immigrants,
asylum-seekers, foreigners and refugees are constructed as scapegoats to
remedy declining political legitimacy. In the present political context, expres-
sions of welfare chauvinism thus facilitate a connection between the socio-
economic questioning of migration as a financial and economic burden to
challenges to the political identity of welfare states and their governments.
That the Europeanization of migration policy connects to the struggle about
the future of the welfare state is not surprising. The European integration
project is steeped in the problematic of the welfare state. For example, the key
areas of European integration – the development of the internal market and
EMU – are not just technical economic projects aiming at the development of
an economic level playing-field to improve the global competitiveness of
European firms and the attraction of its market for foreign investment. The
integration project is embroiled in the political game of preserving the
legitimacy of post-war political order and political regimes. The EU functions
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770 JEF HUYSMANS
VII. Conclusion
In contemporary Europe, migration has become a meta-issue in the political
spectacle. It has become a powerful theme through which functionally differ-
entiated policy problems, such as identity control and visa policy, asylum
applications, integration of immigrants, distribution of social entitlements, and
the management of cultural diversity are connected and traversed. Discourses
and governmental technologies reifying immigrants, asylum-seekers, refu-
gees and foreigners as a dangerous challenge to societal stability play a
prominent – though not exclusive – role in connecting these different issues.
The Europeanization of migration policy has made a distinct contribution
to this development. It has directly securitized migration by integrating
migration policy into an internal security framework, that is, a policy frame-
work that defines and regulates security issues following the abolition of
internal border control. It has also indirectly sustained the securitization of
migration. The construction of the internal security field, the restrictive
migration policy, the privileging of nationals of Member States in the internal
market, and policies supporting, often indirectly, expressions of welfare
chauvinism and the idea of cultural homogeneity as a stabilizing factor feed
into the negative politicization of immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees as
an illegitimate presence and scapegoat. Such a negative rendering of migration
at the European level further bolsters domestic political spectacles in which
migration is often easily connected to security-related problems such as crime
and riots in cities, domestic instability, transnational crime and welfare fraud.
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THE EU AND THE SECURITIZATION OF MIGRATION 771
Correspondence:
Jef Huysmans
London Centre of International Relations, University of Kent
Awdry House, 11 Kingsway
London WC2B 6YE, England
Tel: (+44) 0207 5656829/5656826 Fax: (+44) 0207 5656827
email: j.p.a.huysmans@ukc.ac.uk
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